Data center architects naturally seek to employ server virtualization to maximize the use of their hardware systems. An often overlooked factor that can undermine this goal is data connectivity. 75 to 95 percent of the response time now associated with database access can often be attributed to the data connectivity layer - and that's using traditional, non-virtualized servers. Running multiple virtual servers on a single machine can introduce additional complications involving data access. This presentation will examine the importance of data connectivity in a virtualized environment, and the need to take an intelligent approach to data access in order to truly reap the benefit of a virtualization strategy.

Depending on your perspective, SOA and virtualization are either synergistic or threaten increased complexity. This session will explain how implementing the right network architecture can make the most of both, promoting agility and reducing complexity. 'Service virtualization' takes functionality that is common across applications and generalizes and leverages it across the business. Capabilities like multicast, encryption, load balancing and data caching - traditionally applications on dedicated servers - have migrated into the network, where they can be virtualized and shared by multiple applications delivered to end users across multiple devices. Attendees will learn how the right network architecture can support strategies like Web 2.0 and SOA, and how the network can reduce complexity and management costs, enhance system resiliency and flexibility, and improve usage and efficiency of networked assets and applications.

As data growth rates continue to climb and business requirements further evolve, customers are feeling the pressure to realign their storage infrastructure to better meet the needs of their business. Mr. Yoshida will discuss how storage virtualization is the key enabler towards the storage-based services required to deliver substantial breakthroughs in efficiency and business agility across the entire enterprise. He will discuss how storage-based services such as thin provisioning, content and file management and dynamic data migration, enabled via controller-based Virtualization, are paving the way for the Dynamic Data Center of tomorrow.

Does virtualization matter? Can virtual desktops go beyond the sum of the virtual parts? What is the business value and at what price? As server virtualization continues to gain deeper traction and provide benefits beyond server consolidation, desktop virtualization is widely expected to follow a similar trajectory and address many of the challenges associated with enterprise desktops. Virtual desktops hold the promise of increased business agility at reduced complexity and cost, while providing high fidelity user experience at a lower carbon footprint. How is this promise delivered? This session explores the current technology trends, business scenarios and economic imperatives that are shaping the future of virtual desktops, enabling new delivery and consumption models.

Open-Xchange and Parallels are integrating Open-Xchange open source email and collaboration software with Parallels technology to deliver a cost-effective, enterprise-class alternative to commercial email and collaboration products at a competitive price. The products, which will be fully integrated with Parallels Automation solutions, will be offered to end-users via hosting and service providers.

I am curious about something - how many organizations are using a single physical host with VMs across different security zones? See, this is something that I would never recommend, and to me it seems like physically segregating your security zones into different virtualization environments solves a fair number of the concerns about the 'dynamic data centers' created by VMotion, VMware DRS, and VMware HA. Or am I overlooking a critical aspect?

The Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) has provided virtualization at the file share level for years but with file virtualization solutions entering the data center, the managed target shrinks from a share that may contain thousands of files, to a single file. We discuss DFS and its value in environments where file virtualization is present. We compare and contrast DFS and file virtualization. We review file virtualization as a migration and administration solution and discuss the role of DFS. We review different disaster recovery scenarios where one or both virtualization solutions are in place. We consider the practical and the promise of file virtualization with and without DFS in the environment.

Brocade announced a series of data center fabric switches and server HBAs that deliver a new level of end-to-end data center networking performance. In addition, the Company announced advanced networking capabilities across both switches and HBAs that simplifies the end-to-end management of server and storage environments, including data migration and data security, in data centers.

Boston Interactive announced the launch of the redesigned website for Virtual Iron Software. Virtual Iron provides comprehensive software solutions for server virtualization and virtual infrastructure. Based in Lowell, Massachusetts, the company competes in the fast-growing server virtualization space against companies such as VMware, Citrix and Microsoft.

Satori Group announced an expanded partnership with Citrix Systems. The broader agreement will supply a virtual appliance of the Business Performance Management solution offered by Satori. The newly expanded partnership includes streamlining application delivery to provide customers with reduced infrastructure and resource needs and a clear strategy to provide end to end virtualization.

ColumbiaSoft announced that it has developed a new package for its Document Locator software that makes it easy to deploy document management services across application virtualization networks such as those offered by Citrix Systems. Application virtualization networks allow IT departments to securely deliver applications as a service without the need to install or manage software applications on individual users' computers.

eApps Hosting announced that the GlassFish Open Source Application Server for Java EE 5, from the GlassFish community project, is now available as a click installable application service in low cost Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting plans. The eApps Hosting service has supported Java since 1999, when the company's Tomcat hosting plans were launched. In 2001 a Java hosting service using JBoss, a J2EE compliant Java application server, was offered.

From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Virtualization is quickly becoming a staple technology for enterprise IT. The theme of this November's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo is 'The Next Generation of Virtualization.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

The need for a way to more effectively manage and reduce the complexity of end points has never been greater. While virtualization technologies offer a breakthrough approach to reduce the complexities of managing end points, there are different ways organizations are leveraging this technology. This session discusses the distinct differences between how organizations are approaching virtualizing end points and the benefits each implementation offers for gaining the performance, security and control needed to manage end points for today's dispersed organizations.

There appear to be basically two views on how virtualization will affect the future development of operating systems and computing environments in the personal computing space. One camp believes that virtualization functionality will be present within the operating system. The other camp believes it will be outside the operating system, perhaps in the form of a hypervisor or thin virtualization layer that resides 'below' the OS and governs access to hardware.

Businesses that virtualize can increase efficiency and reduce costs by eliminating low- performance/low-efficienc y servers. Less well-known, but equally important, is the parallel advantage of streamlining the legacy power and cooling systems that support virtualized environments. This presentation will discuss how new power and cooling technologies and effective data center planning and design are saving additional electrical costs, sometimes even more than the original savings from virtualization. Learn how to help manage the complexities of a virtualized environment by answering the not-so-obvious questions 'Where should I locate my next server?' and 'Where should I migrate my applications to maximize efficiency?'

Virtualization is the future of IT management, but what exactly does that mean to your organization? CIOs around the world recognize that virtualization could be the answer to combating skyrocketing costs associated with managing their IT infrastructure; however, many are still left wondering how to implement a long-term, sustainable virtualization strategy. In this session, BMC Software CTO, Tom Bishop, will explain how IT organizations can realize the full value of virtualization through aligning IT with business priorities and automating IT processes.

'Virtualization is already widely used, but primarily for the first-order benefit, namely server consolidation,' notes Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, in this Exclusive Q&A with Virtualization Journal. 'The second-order benefits of agility, availability and manageability of the IT stack are now becoming better understood,' Crosby continues, 'and as a consequence virtualization has moved from a tactical tool for gaining immediate savings, to become a key strategic theme for every IT department.'

As a technology provider that helps application companies embrace cloud computing by virtualizing the applications to run on any cloud, I was a bit disappointed with Google's appengine announcement. It appears that Google is embracing the 'walled garden' approach of salesforce.com and Microsoft instead of the cloud approach of Amazon.

FalconStor announced FalconStor Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware Site Recovery Manager. According to FalconStor, VMware Site Recovery Manager is a new product for disaster recovery management and automation. Part of VMware's suite of management and automation products for the data center, VMware Site Recovery Manager provides for business continuity planning and testing.

emerion WebHosting is using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers to power new virtual private server (VPS) offerings for its customers. emerion vServers also use Parallels Plesk Control Panel and Parallels Business Automation software to provide a complete solution for managing VPS services, including billing and provisioning.

The last 10 years has seen a remarkable evolution in virtualization. First generation virtualization centered on Development & Testing and was largely confined to desktop computers and test servers. Second generation technology focused on Server Consolidation to lower hardware costs and saw the rise of hypervisor-powered hardware virtualization solutions. Now, we?re entering the third generation of virtualization, where Optimizing IT Infrastructure in the datacenter is critical. This next step forward will involve large-scale virtualized datacenter deployments that are heterogeneous, cross-platform, and include operating system and hypervisor-based virtualization for servers and workstations.

As virtualization platform vendors strengthen and expand the feature sets of their respective offerings, it is almost a certainty that the data center in the future will include a heterogeneous mix of virtualization platforms as well as physical platforms. For organizations that are moving to virtualization, choosing the correct platform for their needs is only the start. For certain, organizations also will need to obtain a set of virtualization utilities to assist in moving to, and managing, one or more virtual platforms in their data centers. These utilities must not simply be ?repurposed? tools from the physical world, but should also be specifically designed to leverage the efficiencies and unique characteristics of the virtual platform.

While the next-generation data center has begun to take shape, the promise of true dynamic computing has so far eluded today's resource, bandwidth and power constrained enterprises. Now however, key advancements in network and processor technologies are converging to lift the remaining barriers and enable truly dynamic computing. In this presentation, IT professionals will learn why this convergence enables the Coherent Network, turning an Enterprise Data Center into a single dynamic resource pool of compute cores, memory, and I/O.

With the rapid deployment of server virtualization technology in the data center, IT management is actively looking at optimizing their SAN storage architecture to reap the full benefits of their virtualization investment, such as workload mobility and disaster recovery, without running into I/O bottlenecks and unpredictable utilization of SAN resources that comes with a much more dynamic environment. This session will explore how Data Center Fabric enables virtual servers and physical servers to stand on an equal footing. It will also discuss capabilities specifically designed to support virtualized environments such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen.

Virtualization is not a new story; its technologies allow companies to meet new business needs and say goodbye to underutilized hardware platforms, power consumption, server sprawl and spiraling IT costs. The technology is here and the benefits are already proving to be fruitful. However, these benefits are only possible if effective management tools are in place. This session will discuss virtualization's missing link - data center automation - and how organizations can use it to create an agile, policy-based environment to automate and orchestrate virtual machine lifecycle management. For without proper management, companies only have a piece of the virtualization puzzle.

Chip PC Technologies announced that it will be introducing its new class of Desktop Appliances, specifically designed for the Citrix XenDesktop desktop delivery solution. The combination of the two provides for a comprehensive solution in the desktop delivery requirements for the Enterprise marketplace. Chip PC's Plug PC will be the flagship product in the series. The Plug PC will draw as low as 3.5 watts of power at maximum load and feature on-board multimedia acceleration establishing the Plug PC as the logical replacement strategy to traditional fat PCs.

To achieve the full potential of 'cloud computing' we need a broader definition of virtualization, and that is the complete de-coupling of the logical components of an application (represented by the software stack) and the physical resources. In the case of middleware, whether it is data access, messaging or the business logic, the physical location of the resources should not matter to the developer and to the end user. This is not a trivial thing to do, especially when it comes to data-intensive, stateful (transactional or otherwise) applications and services. In this session we will explore the challenges and propose a solution, including a live demo.

With a remote workforce, either through offshoring business processes or remote home workers, it is essential to keep the data safe while providing the most flexible computing experience. This session will discuss the strategies and pitfalls when building a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). It will discuss cost issues and help customers build a compelling Retrun On Investment through determining the Total Cost of Ownership of a VDI implementation. This session will also cover the strategic architecture and how to build a VDI Solution that will allow an Organization to reap the benefits of a remote workforce.

There has been much speculation about the security posture of virtualized environments. One identified vulnerability is the 'hypervisor' threat in which a hacker can break out of a guest OS and onto the host OS of a server. How great a danger is the hypervisor threat? What security barriers should IT erect before and after they implement their virtual environment? Virtual security expert Hezi Moore will help attendees separate the virtualized wheat from the real chaff.

The ultimate goal of virtualization is to increase the utilization and efficiency of your current infrastructure. To that end, one should consider virtualizing the entire data center, including the traditional servers and storage, but also bringing in networking, cable management, power management, cooling/airflow capabilities, etc. This allows for extreme flexibility and agility in terms of managing the infrastructure to the point of being able to roll in and out entire racks of equipment without needing an electrician to add power outlets, without adjusting tile placement for airflow, without pulling extra cable runs, etc ... basically roll it in, plug it in, connect the network/FC cables, power up and go, all within 30-45 minutes. Additionally, efficiency and power savings are very critical in the design and architecture phases, making sure to provide as much power to the IT equipment and as little to the supporting infrastructure as possible. By utilizing a management framework based upon ITIL, and having the proper expertise with ISV applications, security, H/A and BC/DR, one can manage these new capabilities with greater ease and better cost control.

At Marathon Technologies, we service a range of industries that must have their applications up and running at all times, or as we call it: vAvailable. vAvailable is the integration of virtualization and high availability technologies to create a cost-effective solution that ensures applications won't go down. With virtualization technologies, high availability has now launched well between today's alternative solutions such as clustering. This session will define vAvailable and this is a huge step between today?s alternatives. Mr. Melnick will discuss a new standard for application availability using virtualization technology that embraces Windows and business process applications.

Today, many organizations hear the term virtualization and still only think of the technology used in a datacenter. While this might be where virtualization started and has received a lot of attention, the next wave of virtualization is happening in connected devices through embedded technologies. When applied, virtualization allows organizations and developers working with front-end connected devices such as mobile phones, set-top boxes and WiMax base stations, to experience business benefits such as reduced bill-of-material costs, faster time-to-market and richer, more functional designs that feature reduced power, improved security and greater reliability.

There is plenty of discussion about virtualization, but who does it really benefit? How can enterprises adopt virtualization technologies to address real business problems? Is virtualization just another consolidation technology? How are other businesses using virtualization? Is there more that it can do to drive competitive advantage, business efficiency, security and compliance? Drawing on the industry's most in-depth independent research into virtualization to date, Andi Mann, senior analyst from Enterprise Management Associates, will help you to understand what are the key business drivers for virtualization, where to expect significant benefits and how to make sure that virtualization delivers strategic advantages.

This presentation will compare and contrast Web application virtualization solutions such as WebSphere Extended Deployment and hardware virtualization solutions. Particular emphasis will be provided on how the two solutions can be combined to provide the most flexible Web application hosting environment.

Virtualization has taken hold in the data center, addressing some of the most pressing issues customers face including excessive power and cooling, and low server utilization. But this is only the first wave of virtualization and only addresses the server. What's next? Enter 'Virtualization 2.0,' where the benefits extend from capital cost reduction to lower operational expenses, improved service levels, agility and IT simplicity. This next wave virtualizes beyond the server, encompassing data center infrastructure (storage, networking and processing) to unbind applications from servers and create a fully agile data center. This session explores Virtualization 2.0 and what it will mean for bottom line business.

This session will focus on Application Virtualization with particular focus on achieving Web-scale. The session will compare and contrast external cloud deployment to internal deployment on commodity infrastructure.

As computer grids are becoming more wide spread in commercial data centers, the bottlenecks in application performance move from raw processing to searching, storing and retrieving the data. In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG) technology solves this fundamental problem by acting as super-efficient application accelerator, taking advantage of unused resources readily available on the grid - disk, memory, IO - to put the data in memory of the same computer that performs the calculations. The talk will explore how IMDG can be easily integrated with existing enterprise grids to create data-aware grid applications and provide application performance acceleration while improving application scalability and reliability.

As governments and corporations intensify their focus on reducing energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions, pressure to improve data center energy efficiency will continue to grow. We believe that the following four Rs must play an essential role in the development of any initiative to create a green data center: Regain power and cooling capacity, Recapture resiliency, Reduce energy costs and Recycle end-of-of-life equipment. Successful organizations will make these four Rs their mantra. And in doing so, their ongoing efforts to think green will help keep their companies operating in the black.